In a pharmacy of a hospital, a nurse's station of a hospital ward, or the like, a pharmacist or a nurse performs a drug mixing preparation (hereinafter, mixed injection preparation) of drugs prescribed on the basis of an instruction such as a prescription generated by a doctor or the like.
When a mixed injection preparation is performed, first, the pharmacist or the nurse sorts the drugs that to be included in the prescribed mixed injection preparation with reference to the instruction sheet. Likewise, the pharmacist or the nurse then performs measurement (of amounts such as weight or volume) of the drugs, dissolution, mixing, and the like, in an appropriate order with respect to the various components.
In order to ensure the mixed injection preparation is performed correctly, the pharmacist or nurse performs an inspection work whereby the pharmacist or nurse checks whether the drugs included in the mixed injection preparation are indeed the drugs prescribed by cross-referencing the labels of the drugs and the instruction sheet (injection prescription), before the mixed injection is prepared or administered.
However, there are several reasons why sorting and checking of drugs can be done erroneously or inappropriately and generate mistaken mixed injection preparations. Specifically, various human errors such as misreading of similar medicine names or failure to check or confirm an expiration date. So, even while pharmacists or nurses are generally careful in the inspection routine, occasional errors may still be made, and it is not easy to prevent erroneous mixed injection preparations.
Thus, several systems that support a preparation work to prevent or reduce the occurrence of preparation errors have been proposed. For example, a technique has been proposed in which a label to be attached to the mixed formulation obtained by mixed injection preparation is prepared in advance and the label is then attached to the new drug preparation after the mixed injection is completely formulated.
However, if the label is printed in advance, then the timing of when the label is attached to the drug is not clear, and thus, a problem may frequently occur that the attachment of the label is not made at an appropriate time or may be omitted.